Doc: The raw, refined Homer Bailey

Mar. 12, 2013

Now that Homer Bailey is physically full, his possibilities are as big as a west Texas sky. That raw talent is being refined. The stubbornness has its place, though. Always will. / Jake Roth/USA TODAY Sports

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GOODYEAR, AZ – Homer Bailey is a stubborn, cantankerous Texan, and we say that only because it is so. He doesn’t necessarily agree with that assessment, partly because he is stubborn and cantankerous. That doesn’t make it any less true.

“It depends on who you ask,’’ Bailey decides. “If you were to ask Bryan Price if I were stubborn, he’d probably say yes. But he’d also say I listen to him acutely well.’’

Price is the Reds pitching coach and a very valuable commodity. Especially if he got Homer Bailey to start listening to him.

“There was this rumor I knew it all. I didn’t know anything,’’ says Bailey. “I just didn’t have the right questions.

“When somebody tells you to do something and you ask why, that probably was taken a little out of context. I didn’t ask why because I thought I knew better. I asked why so I could learn. It’s like that for any young professional. If you’re not asking why, you’re probably not learning anything.’’

Bailey will tell you he had a breakthrough 2012 because he stayed healthy. Period. “There were no mystical changes,’’ he says. “I stayed on the field. I felt good. It’s not as complicated as y’all try to make it.’’

Bailey didn’t take the mound with his shoulder begging for mercy. His mind was focused on pitching, not on pain. He made 33 starts and missed none. The results were impressive.

I’m not a fantasy obsessive. If I were, I might take a chance on David Dewitt Bailey, who is on the edge of his prime and the cusp of special-ness. Bailey went 8-4 after June last season. He threw a no-hitter on Sept. 28, and that wasn’t even his best work. His catcher, Ryan Hanigan, will tell you Bailey was better in Game 3 of the NLDS against San Francisco. Bailey worked seven innings in that game, allowing one hit and one run in a game the Reds lost in 10, 2-1.

Bailey will be 27 on May 3. All the lessons he has learned and pain he has collected seem to have served him well. Being a top draft choice of a team that, in 2004, had Junior Griffey and a perennial wish for Next Year made Bailey a bigger target for media scrutiny than he’d have liked. Bailey isn’t big on media scrutiny.

“I get very annoyed very quickly,’’ he says. “Let me be left alone. Let me go play.’’

I played word association last week with Hanigan. I named a pitcher, he offered a one-word descriptive. Hanigan is a very bright guy. His answers came instantly, until I came to Bailey. Hanigan thought on it for 10 seconds.

“Raw talent,’’ he said.

Bailey knows he needs to refine. “I want to get better from the stretch. My secondary pitches (need) a little more consistency. Establish the fastball. Get ahead (in the count) with breaking balls. I’m really close. I have to realize what my game is, and make it better. You’re not going to tell Joey (Votto) to bunt. I know who I am now.’’

As for the mental portion of the program?

“The mental side is very hard to explain,’’ Bailey says. “If I told you stuff, you wouldn’t understand it.’’

No, of course not.

“One pitch at a time. Knowing how to pitch when you don’t feel good. Knowing how to pitch when you do feel good. Channel all of that. Those are your generic answers.’’

I wanted to ask Bailey about hunting. He does a lot of it. The first time he appeared in the clubhouse at Great American Ball Park, he had a hunting knife strapped to his pants-leg.

In some meaningful way, hunting defines him. It’s a solitary, individual pursuit, like pitching, and deeply rooted in the American persona. Hunting is self-made and rugged, and as such very Texan. Bailey is old-school, pickup-truck Texan in a way that fellow Texan Jay Bruce is not. I wanted to plumb the depths of his hunting passion.

“Did you really kill a lion with a bow and arrow?’’ I asked.

Yes.

“How’d you do that?’’

“Pulled the string back. I don’t want to talk about the lion.’’

Can we talk about hunting generally?

No. “Baseball questions.’’

Bailey allows that he has “always been rather confident in my ability.’’ Now that he’s physically full, his possibilities are as big as a west Texas sky. That raw talent is being refined. The stubbornness has its place, though. Always will.

I suggest to Bailey he was lucky not to have been drafted by the Yankees or Philly. All that media nonsense, multiplied. He disagrees, naturally.